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James N. Mattis is the four-star Marine general whom Barack Obama just nominated to head the U.S. Central Command, with oversight of the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. If confirmed by the Senate (a hearing is set for today), Mattis will replace David Petraeus, who took over command of troops in Afghanistan from Stanley McChrystal after he and his staff spoke too bluntly to a Rolling Stone reporter.

The irony is that Mattis is a tough talker, too, who got in trouble in 2005 for saying that "it's fun to shoot some people." (Imagine that! A warrior who likes war!) I heard Mattis speak in May, just before his promotion, at the "Hybrid Warfare" conference that I described in a previous post. I'm not one to fawn over military leaders, but I liked Mattis. He came across as smart, earnest and reflective, if a bit scatterbrained. He sees himself as a just warrior, but he also seems to have an acute sense of war's inevitable moral ambiguities. "There is probably no one in this room more reluctant to go fight than me," he said. "But once in a fight, I give it everything I've got."

Below are highlights from Mattis's rambling, hour-long, unscripted talk, which should give a sense of the substance and style of the man. In terms of news value, two passages stand out. Mattis charged Russia with sending "thugs and animals" into Georgia in 2008 to commit atrocities, which provided an excuse for the later invasion by regular Russian troops. I was also surprised by Mattis's suggestion that the 2003 invasion of Iraq "was the dumbest thing we ever did." (He nonetheless insists that the U.S. must now win the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.) I've edited Mattis's remarks, and in some cases shifted their order.

On the Russian war with Georgia in 2008: "I flew into Georgia a little after their fight with the Russians, and I met with the Georgian officers who had conducted the fight. It was very interesting. Because here the Russians had conducted and changed the border of Europe using force of arms, something NATO was in such disbelief over they couldn't even confront it, intellectually. And what happens is, the Russians conduct a conventional, sloppy, mass-type conventional fight, with significant irregular warfare aspects. They do cyber attacks. They use the Vostok battalion. For those of you not aware of it, it is Russian officers, Russian equipped, Russian paid. And it's got some of the biggest thugs and animals you can imagine. They move into an area. They intentionally burn, pillage, rape. And then in comes the Russian army, and suddenly, here we are to calm everything down. See? We Russians were the good guys."

On America's enemies: "There are real enemies out there. I've dealt with them. There are people who really believe girls don't have the right to go to school. ... [They] try to bring those views forward in some form of tyranny. That's all it is. We are dealing with tyranny today, and there are very few people in Brussels or London or Washington, D.C., who are willing to call it what it is. In false religious garb, we have people who are continuing the same thing we fought in World War I when it was militarism. World War II was fascism. The Cold War and hot wars when it was communism. This is just another form of tyranny, is all it is. ...This enemy must continue to kill and kill and kill. They can't win at the ballot box. ...We're gonna kill all of them. The al Qaeda. The forced marriages—you and I call it rape. The cutting off of boys' heads and throwing them on hospital steps. The killing of a sheik who was not even on our side, and leaving his body for four days in the August sun, in a religion where you are supposed to be buried before nightfall."

On how we will always have enemies: "The enemy is going to continue to be there, the enemy of what I call the values of the Enlightenment. ...The nature of man has not changed, unfortunately. And it's not going to change anytime soon, I don't think. So we are going to have to be ready to fight, across the range of military operations, whatever the enemy chooses to do."

On the U.S. invasion of Iraq: "Sincere, intellectually vigorous, honest, patriotic Americans say that was the dumbest thing we ever did, to go to Iraq. And I will not disagree one bit. But the U.S. military will stand obedient to the commander in chief, to the president, to whoever the constitution says is now representing the people of this country."

On the necessity of winning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: "If you lose the current fight, then you have to put more troops in danger around the world. Because we have emboldened the enemy. So now it comes down to how best do we do this, and how well can we the leadership identify to the American people, to whom we owe an accounting, that we know what we're doing and we're going to win. And I do use that word. ... And I do use the word "victory". We've achieved victory in Iraq, and now we'll see if the Iraqi people can exploit it politically in a humane way."

On how U.S. soldiers must remain true to U.S. values: "We're not the perfect guys, but we're the good guys. And our value system must reflect that when we go into a fight…against an enemy that intentionally hides among innocent people and tries to draw fire on them. We cannot allow a degree of racism to seep in. We have got to keep true to our values and make certain that we represent the better angels of our nature, as Abraham Lincoln would put it, and not the racist values."

On how alliances with "bad guys" are sometimes necessary: "Sometimes there are no good guys. There are no bad guys. It seems like everybody is in the middle. I'll tell you, I've slept peaceably among murderers who were on our side. ...If [FDR] can make common cause with Joe Stalin to defeat Hitler, I would think that we can make common cause with people that would annihilate Manhattan if they had half a chance."

On the future of the U.S. military: "We must avoid being dominant and irrelevant at the same time. Dominant in our chosen forms of war and irrelevant to the security of this country. So you've got to be able to adapt in the Darwinian sense. And we will continue to adapt. Wherever the enemy wants to fight, we will follow him to the ends of the Earth. We'll adapt, we'll train, we'll advise, we'll mentor and we'll fight, and we'll fight well."

On lessons the U.S. can learn from the British and Roman empires: "Here is the problem we face today: How do we maintain nuclear deterrence, conventional superiorities, while making irregular warfare a core competency of the U.S. military? And people say you can't do both. I reject that. We cannot subdivide the military into smaller and smaller pieces doing specialized kinds of warfare, because the enemy will simply move to the area you are not specialized in. The challenge we face is supported though by history. The British Empire was able to do both: internal defense, hold onto the empire and still fight externally using the same soldiers. The Roman Empire was able to do it."

On tension between secretaries of defense and state: "For most of the 41 years I've worn this uniform, we've had a secretary of state and secretary of defense who couldn't stand each other, who couldn't talk to each other. And we have paid a bloody price for that. Today we do not have that problem. And [Defense Secretary] Gates is an effective change-maker in the department."

On the flaws of the American media: "[The media] works with more of a focus on the fallings short of the U.S. military, and the apparent failings of its political leadership, of the western political leadership, more so than on the enemy's murder and mayhem that they are creating around the world."

On idealism versus pragmatism (and this passage, more than anything else Mattis said, made me like the man): "As Will Rogers—in the 1930s, when Marines were being landed in Nicaragua and Honduras—said, 'It may surprise some people in Washington, D.C., to find that many people in other countries are more comfortable having an imperfect government of their own rather than having a perfect one foisted on them by us, by Marines'. I think there is a lot of wisdom there. Our most successful strategies have been the most pragmatic. The most idealistic have let us down horribly, because they are often aspirational, unmet either by the physical or spiritual resources of the American people. We have always been an idealistic people bound by pragmatism. We have no moral obligation to do the impossible. And I think that if we come out of [our current wars] with a more nuanced, more critical view of when we should commit our forces, I think that is helpful."

13 Comments

1. 1. arrbeeone 09:37 AM 7/27/10

   What has this got to do with science?

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2. 2. JamesDavis 10:03 AM 7/27/10

   Now Mattis will be a smart Warrior-in-Chief, and I like his first name, plus, 'that is a nice looking tie he is wearing'. He will give us a more honest view of Bush's two worthless wars than Bush's Gen. Be-tray-us, who just lip-synced Bush ever did. We need to get the hell out of those two wars and start directing our attention back here to America a putting that 2 billion dollars a week, 'war effort' back into our economy.

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3. 3. J4rh34d 10:28 AM 7/27/10

   This is Military Science, otherwise known as Applied Social Engineering and Group Therapy

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4. 4. yevoc 11:43 AM 7/27/10

   Can we please just make a splinter magazine called "Political American" so that your politically bent writers can let off steam and energy before getting back to science? The magazine has become increasingly focused on politics and less about science in the decade I've been a subscriber, and I'm not sure how much more of this trend I'm willing to tolerate.

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5. 5. SrConsult47 12:01 PM 7/27/10

   This article is simply an opinion piece, a story that is surely better dealt with by those better qualified to discuss such matters.
   
   While I find myself agreeing with many of the General's thoughts, I remain very disappointed that Scientific American thinks them somehow pertinent to any kind of science discussion.
   
   Perhaps it is important to point out that Mattis didnt actually say that the Iraq invasion was the dumbest thing we ever did as evidenced by Mr. Horgans later comment: I've edited Mattis's remarks, and in some cases shifted their order.
   
   I get worried when generals feel a need to delve into the arena of political opinion almost as much as science writers (Journalists?) who depart their respective missions.
   

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6. 6. jtdwyer 02:04 PM 7/27/10

   I certainly agree with the other commentators.
   
   Not to mention that the title somewhat misrepresents the general's actual statement.

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7. 7. SSB 02:08 PM 7/27/10

   Reminds me somewhat of Gen. Patton; A strong intellectual but with a warriors heart. My guess is his command will follow where he leads. Guys like him have come along in our history when they are needed the most, not because there havn't been others in time but because they were present, available and recognizable when we as a nation needed them the most; I.E. Nimitz, Patton,Ike, Bradley, Grant, etc. My GOD bless him and our wonderful Nation, because we need him and Men and Women like him now in our Military.

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8. 8. deisha 09:09 PM 7/27/10

   I'm sorely disappointed that Obama would consider Mattis as a candidate to head the Afghan war. His profane bravado harkens back to to an unfortunate time when the U.S. military was hounding Indian families and clans across territories to destroy them or subdue them on reservations. I thought Obama was considering different appoaches in relations with foreign countries and peoples.

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9. 9. citygod 04:10 AM 7/28/10

   Values of the Enlightenment. Military technology. Reality-based community. War, and warriors, as a subject of rational inquiry - something a few of the above commentators aren't used to!

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10. 10. JamesDavis in reply to deisha 07:11 AM 7/28/10

    "deisha"... What planet are you from? Are you from that planet called "Republican, Do No Good"?

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11. 11. Sparapet in reply to citygod 02:43 PM 7/30/10

    Great point citygod.........in the words of Thucydides "A nation that makes too great a distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools."
    Military Officers, especially field commanders and their staffs are practicing social engineers, with more practice and theory per day than most of the population gets per year. Those of them that choose to be deliberate about their practices and learn from them, have much to teach.

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12. 12. popculturevultures 12:51 PM 7/31/10

    Dear crappy magazine writer: what does this have to do with science? How is this not unlike another press release from the white house? Why does this matter when the muslim terrorists are allowed to build a mosque where the twin towers once stood here on our own soil? Why shouldn't this magazine just switch over to pretty pictures and leftist lingo in the same vein as National Geographic?

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13. 13. ennui 07:02 PM 8/24/10

    What is wrong with appointing someone who has brains?

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